Everyone Died+My iPhone Stopped Working: An Oral History of The Robot Apocalypse

#LoveWins

A/N: I had intended to make this a later chapter, but in light of the Supreme Court's groundbreaking decision on same-sex marriage, I am posting it now, for reasons that should be pretty obvious. 

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Dougal Latham, 17 

When I saw Chad climbing out of his above-ground pool, smiling at me in those tight swim trunks, the droplets of water glistening on his sculpted body I knew I had made the right decision. It was a decision that Chad had been trying to get me to make for a long time.

For the previous six months, I had given in to my parents' wishes and allowed myself to be subjected to something called "reparative therapy." It was amazing, really. Gay marriage was legal from sea to shining sea, yet there were still these backward places where they still believed they could "cure" gayness. And lucky me, I lived in one of those places. 

That was the day that Dr. Gordon, my "therapist" suggested I poop in a bottle and carry it around with me. Any time I was tempted by a man, he explained, I was supposed to take off the cap and sniff it, to remind me of how horrible butt sex is. 

First of all: no. 

Second of all: God, no. LOL.

 [note: Dougal actually pronounces the word LOL instead of laughing] 

And third of all: when I was fifteen, I had once gone down on my cousin Sharon (it was on a dare and I was drunk and, besides, I was still trying to pass) and, well, I don't know if all coochies are like that, but let's just say it wasn't exactly an advertisement for the minty-fresh scent of heterosexuality, if you get my drift. LOL. 

I had put up with a lot of weird stuff from Dr. Gordon already in his attempts to make me straight. First, he banned me from participating in anything he considered gay. I wasn't supposed to listen to opera or musical theater which, believe it or not, I couldn't actually stand to begin with. 

Then he wanted me to take on some manly activity, like the martial arts. So I signed up for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ as it's known, which I thought was funny but he didn't, and the Brazilians really didn't) and believe it or not, no matter how much I rolled around on a mat with sweaty men, I didn't feel any less gay, but I did start to enjoy the sensation of being choked. LOL. 

He then started assigning me hetero homework. Like jerking off while watching straight porn videos, which was fine with me. The trick is to just focus on the guy, LOL, and think of the woman as a drag queen, LOL. 

When that didn't seem to be helping, he encouraged me -- with my parents' approval, believe it or not -- to have premarital heterosexual sex, which was super-weird because my family was very religious which was why they were sending me to reparative therapy to begin with. 

"Homosexuality is a sin! Now go out and fornicate!" LOL. 

And finally, there was the poop bottle, which was the last straw. I threw a hissy fit in his office. Because if I'm going to be gay, I'm going to be really gay. LOL. And I stormed out of his office in a huff. He yelled something at me about how I had really let God down and I'd face his wrath and all that stuff that's supposed to frighten me, but didn't. 

And thinking about it, I never did learn where "Doctor" Gordon got his degree from, but I was pretty sure it wasn't Harvard. LOL.

I knew I'd have to have the Big Talk with my parents and that would be incredibly unpleasant. But first, I wanted to see Chad and let him know that I had finally embraced the real me. And hopefully, in the process, embrace the real him. LOL. 

Believe it or not, he was even more excited than me by the news and we shared our first open and shame-free kiss. It felt amazing. So amazing that it took us a minute or so to realize that there was all this weird noise and people screaming. And things blowing up. 

We ran out to Chad's front yard and everything was complete chaos. There were these tiny buzzing things that, from a distance, kind of looked like insects and, believe it or not, I suddenly worried that God was mad at me and this was a plague of locusts. Locusts with lasers or something. Twenty-first century locusts. 

Then I realized that they were small, incredibly powerful machines and they were killing everybody in sight. And that was the truly amazing thing. That they were killing everybody, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. 

Because to the machines, we were all the same.